Little Franklin wrote:

On the Beach (1959).  A weird one.  People in Australia have a few months to live before a radioactive cloud, that's already killed the rest of the world, hits them.  Rather than society collapsing, everyone calmly carries on going to work, the beach, cocktail parties, queueing for suicide tablets.  One funny scene has a racing tournament where the drivers apparently all decide there's no point worrying about safety and start crashing an burning.  A striking idea but mostly just dull. 3/10

I read the book On The Beach when I was quite young. Late teens maybe. One of the few books that made me cry. The ending of the book is heart breaking.  It being the 80s and in the shadow of the Cold War it had that added spice of possibility too.

I think Kubrick suffers from over exposure to be honest. But I still find his work has that quality of halting me when I see a film running and it's hard to look away.

You're wrong about FMJ Kow, but that's fine, you recovered with the EWS stance (it's a great film, better than most could ever hope to achieve and it's still not the best Kubrick).

He's the GOAT by a long margin for me. I may rewatch Barry Lyndon this weekend. What a phenomenal achievement.

Dick in hand.....

I love you long time.

FMJ was shot on the Isle of Dogs. Old Stanley didn't like to travel.

When I think about the film I have it low down the ratings - then I see a clip on YT or something and I start to love it again.

Quite often I agree with Kermode, but he is wrong about Eyes Wide Shut. It's beautifully shot and it just has a certain quality to it that is hard to describe - it takes you over - and has me thinking about it the next day.

Anyway, I finished got through Passengers.

Yeah hmm. Was a bit pants, then got intriguing, then rapidly went pants again. Could have been so much more but the window of her anger was far too short. And the romance and effects were pretty cringe.

Oh well, onwards onwards.

Watched the Netflix film Run. A solid 7. Would have got higher but it rushed it tension build realisation too soon

ShabbyMcCrabby wrote:

30. Thunder Force A covid project I think, mostly closed sets and very few extras. Very bland and unfunny except for a couple of moments. Really hate that US improv style. [1]

Done right its OK. Im thinking Curb mainly. Have a script, allow improv, pick what lands best.

Melissa McCarthy is just awful though. There doesn't appear to be a script to fall back on, almost every scene in the films i've seen her in are just her stood on set with verbal diarrhea and nothing left on the cutting room floor.

It’s not funny.

35. Love and Monsters - homage to Zombieland, Tremors, Stand by Me and any Harryhausen film with some great scenes all wrapped up into a simple but fun short action film that doesn’t seem to get made anymore.

Jiu Jitsu

Frank Grillo, Tony Jaa and Nicolas Cage Vs Martial Arts Alien ought to be, at the very least, a fun 90 minutes, and by rights a cult classic.

It is, instead, easily one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. The acting, beyond the three I’ve mentioned already is probably best described as “sub-porn movie” - particularly lead charisma vacuum Alain Moussi. (Grillo, Jaa and Cage aren’t in it all that much really, it’s just the film improves vastly when they are. Especially Cage who acts like he’s in the movie this should be, rather than the one it is.)

The biggest issue though is the direction. The fight scenes are serviceable if surprisingly dull - a problem made worse when battling against the alien and his dodgy CGI. The rest is just plain bad. Cuts that render scenes unintelligible, characters that just disappear, and random experimentation with techniques which could be fun if the filmmaker understood the slightest thing about the language of the medium in which he’s working.

The most egregious example is an early battle in which, for no particular reason the camera switches to a first person point of view. Which is kind of cool, except suddenly the person whose perspective we’ve been enjoying will suddenly appear in front of the camera. This then happens several more times in the same fight, each time pulling you right out of the action. It’s presumably quite a tricky move to pull off - the faux continuous take which moves back and forth to first person - which makes it all the weirder that it’s employed to such baffling ends. The trick is never used again at any stage of the film, though a few other gimmicks are played with - again with no particular reference to context, as if the director had heard it was a thing you could do, so did, without really considering whether he should.

That scene comes in the film’s early “so bad it’s good” stages, before it descends into just “so bad it’s bad”. I fell asleep twice. Again - in a film where Nic Cage battles a martial arts wielding space alien.

Ah yes, the alien. He has super speed, he can cloak, and he threatens to kill everyone in the world if he doesn’t get to scrap with his chosen jiu jitsu masters (who mostly don’t use jiu jitsu). He also has a handy array of very bad CGI, the high point of which is his ability to spew endless throwing stars, whilst somehow almost never manage to hit anything. Presumably he’s resorted to punch ups with humans after being expelled from Predator society in shame. He lives by a code, but I couldn’t fathom what the hell it was. Apparently “he comes every 6 years and gives us all jiu jitsu” which makes him sound like an STI ridden sex tourist. (Which would have made for a more convincing threat.)

An impressively bad piece of cinematic faeculence, that somehow throws away both its campy premise and interesting cast to create something remarkable only in its dullness.

hylian_elf wrote:

Well that was an entertaining read!  What made you watch it, though?  I'm guessing it wasn't critic reviews.

I do a “movie club” with a few friends and it was suggested by one of them (based on Nick Cage + aliens). I’m looking forward to the discussion!

Minkymu wrote:

Robin williams was the only person that could do that unscripted thing well

And even then it requires judicial editing. It's a very narrow line.

I watched The Ritual last night with my daughter.  I’ve not ever really a seen much about it but it i thought it was absolutely fantastic ands played pitch perfectly by all the major actors.  Special mention to the monster design too - absolute top-est of tiers.

To carry on the theme of scary woods movies i will tonight be introducing her to The Blair Witch Project.

Anyone got any other scared in the woods style recs whilst we’re in the area?


Oooh shout out for Backcountry again which we rewatched.  Something similar to Jaws crossed with the tension of Blair witch plus grizzly bear.  Top stuff.